Worth
The battle was over. Sun, Weiss, and Flash were keeping watch over Torchwick and the White Fang prisoners, covered by Ciel. The scream of police sirens could be heard in the distance, getting closer.
And Ruby… Ruby was dying.
Sunset, Pyrrha, Jaune, Yang, Penny, they were all gathered around Ruby, kneeling beside or standing over her, casting their long shadows over her pale form as her blood lapped at their knees or at the edges of their shoes. Sunset’s whole body shivered with fury, while Yang cradled Ruby’s head in her hands and looked as though she was trying to find the words to speak but could not muster them. Pyrrha’s mouth was an O of trembling disbelief, while Penny’s hands were clasped over her heart.
“Please, no,” Pyrrha whispered.
“Is… is Ruby…?” Penny asked. She looked around, as if she was hoping that one of her teammates would explain this to her in a way that made sense. But Ciel was still up on the roof, and Rainbow Dash had disappeared, and there was no one to make sense of this for her. Just Ruby, bleeding in front of her.
"She's going to be fine!" Yang insisted, then looked back down at her sister. "You hear me, Ruby?" she asked quietly. "You're going to be fine."
Jaune knelt by Ruby’s side, across from Yang. Tears filled his blue eyes, making it difficult for him to see. He wiped furiously with the back of his hand, but the tears always returned as soon as he stopped wiping.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair! Why was Ruby about to… why had Ruby been injured like this? Why was Ruby the one who was suffering? Why was she the one about to leave the team behind, when she was so brave and… so nice and so…
Why was Ruby leaving them, when someone as useless as him was still right here?
“Jaune?”
Jaune gasped. That was Ruby’s voice, faint and quiet and softer than it ever was before, but it was still Ruby’s voice. He wiped his eyes free of tears again, and he could see that she…she was smiling at him. It was the strangest thing. The stupidest, weirdest… sweetest thing. Ruby was… but she didn’t care. She only cared that he was upset, and so she smiled.
“Don’t cry, Jaune,” she whispered. “It’s alright.”
“No, no, it isn’t!” Jaune yelled. “This isn’t fair! It isn’t right!”
Ruby’s smile didn’t falter, not for a moment. “Don’t cry,” she repeated. “Please don’t cry. You’re so much cuter when you’re smiling.” She blinked, and Jaune could see that there were tears in her eyes too, water welling in those silver eyes that burned so brightly. “Smile for me, Jaune. Smile… and help me to be brave.”
Jaune tried to smile. He really did; he tried to honour her request. But his friend was dying in front of him, and he couldn’t help her, and he couldn’t save her, and he couldn’t help her to be brave when he couldn’t even be brave himself. He tried to smile, but it probably came out as more of a grimace.
Nevertheless, Ruby said, “That’s better. Thank you, Jaune.”
“Ruby, I-”
“Is everyone here?”
Pyrrha gently reached out to take her hand. She seemed to be the only one who could muster speech. “We’re here, Ruby: me and Jaune and Sunset and Yang, and even Penny. We’re all right here.”
“Good,” Ruby murmured. “Then… I can-”
“No!” Jaune yelled. “You… you can’t just leave yet, you have to hold on.”
“I… I don’t know if I…”
“You have to!” Jaune repeated, shouting even louder now. “You have to,” he repeated with a sob, a childlike sob that begged for the reassurance of an adult to tell him that everything would be alright, that Ruby would be back on her feet and fighting fit by the next chapter.
Yang looked as though she had wept all of the tears out of herself, leaving only dry sobs behind. “It’s okay, Ruby,” she whispered, stroking her little sister’s hair. “It’s going to be okay. I’m right here. We’re all right here. If it hurts… if it hurts, then close your eyes, and when you wake up… when you wake up, everything will be better.” She began to hum, a soft lullaby, a sound of peace and tranquility that seemed almost offensively out of place with everything that was going on here.
Jaune had thought that if they only lived like the heroes from the books and from comics, then they could become just like them, that even if life and the real world weren’t fairytales maybe, if you acted as though they were, you could make the world that way, at least a little bit. But this was surely the part of the story where a kid would say ‘shut the book now, Mom; we don’t want to read any more. Shut the book, but tell us that it all works out okay in the end.’
But Jaune couldn’t shut the book because this was his life, his life and his friend, and he couldn’t do anything about it! He was a useless, pathetic, pointless loser!
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed, closing his eyes and clenching them tight shut.
Sunset had seen it. Sunset had tried in an imperfect way to confront him with the truth, but even she had backpedalled on it in the end, even she had decided that being nice to him was better than being right, even she had decided to humour his incompetence in the name of his ambitions. And this was the result. Perhaps… maybe if Ruby had had a fourth teammate who actually knew what he was doing, then she wouldn’t be…
Maybe a better man, a real hero, would have saved her.
“Please, Ruby,” Jaune begged, clutching her hand as though he could physically hold her back from death. “Please, you… you can’t go, you have to stay here, with us. Please, Ruby, just hang on!”
As he spoke, as he begged, as he pleaded, Jaune felt a tingling sensation in his hands, a feeling like water was running down them; not like sweat, more like he was a skin filled with water that was slowly draining out of him and into another vessel, as though the great bowl of his own power was emptying out to fill another cup beneath.
“Jaune,” Pyrrha whispered, awe-struck.
Jaune opened his eyes. He could see that around his hands, a silver light glowed, rippling and running like the water that he felt inside of him, and it was flowing over Ruby, gradually enveloping her like a cocoon, covering her wounded side, her whole body. And, as Jaune watched with eyes wide and drying out of tears, the dolorous blow that had been dealt to Ruby began to heal, closing up before his very gaze.
Then she gasped and began to twitch and jerk and writhe.
“What’s happening?” Jaune demanded.
“Don’t stop!” Pyrrha cried. “You’re stimulating her aura to heal her body; it might be painful, but it’s what she needs.” She looked up at him. “I think… you’ve just unlocked your semblance, Jaune.”
Jaune boggled. A day ago, even a few moments ago, and he would have been ecstatic at the news, but now… now all he could think of was the girl in front of him and whether she would live.
“So… Ruby’s going to be okay?”
“If you keep doing what you’re doing, she’ll be absolutely fine,” Pyrrha said, “but we need to hold her down, keep her from moving.”
They all helped: Yang, Sunset, even Penny; they grabbed Ruby by the shoulders and the feet and held her in place as Jaune’s… as Jaune’s semblance did its work. The silver waves of his semblance continued to wash over her like the gentle and renewing waves of some mystical sea.
“Hold on, Ruby,” he whispered. “Just hold on.”
Rainbow had Brutal Honesty in one hand as she scanned the waterfront.
Her goggles were down over her eyes, the HUD that Twilight had built into them giving her not only better night vision than she would have otherwise enjoyed but also a range of scanning options.
Unfortunately, none of those scanning options were revealing any sign of Adam Taurus to her.
“If you didn’t find the body,” Blake muttered, “then I’m afraid there's a good chance he’s still alive.”
Rainbow growled. “Hopefully, he just sunk. Maybe the police can dredge the harbour or something.”
“Perhaps,” Blake said, her voice barely louder than a whisper. She glanced at Rainbow Dash. “It looks like Ruby’s going to be okay.”
Rainbow’s eyebrows rose. “Okay?”
“It seems that Jaune just found his semblance,” Blake explained. “It seems to be stimulating her aura.”
Rainbow frowned. “I’ve known people who didn’t complete the full course at Combat School who still found their semblances, so what took him so long?”
Blake shrugged. “I don’t know. Some people are just late bloomers, I guess.” She paused. “I don’t suppose it matters. All that matters is that he found it now, and Ruby’s going to be okay.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow agreed. “That is what matters. A kid like that… she’ll be a credit to this kingdom once she grows up.”
Blake sniffed. “She’s already a credit to this kingdom, don’t you think?”
“I suppose. She’ll be even more of one later,” Rainbow said. “You really think he’s not dead?”
“I don’t want to assume he is only to have him turn up on my doorstep later,” Blake said darkly.
“I guess not,” Rainbow agreed. “I’ll get him next time.”
Blake glanced at Rainbow.
“What?” Rainbow demanded. “You think I can’t do it?”
“I think… I think you shouldn’t have burned so much of your aura saving me,” Blake declared. “I’ve never seen anyone take a hit from Moonslice before. By all rights, you should have ended up like Ruby.”
“I’m three years older than Ruby, and I’ve been taught by General Ironwood himself. I’d be ashamed if I didn’t have a few extra tricks up my sleeve.”
Blake was silent for a moment. “I’m guessing you concentrated your aura to your forearm, enabling you to take the blow without your aura breaking. A gutsy move, but it must have drained you down into the yellow, if not the red.”
“And yet, I would have kicked his ass if that big guy hadn’t gotten in my way.”
Blake didn’t dispute that. “You would have won regardless if you’d-”
“Let him cut you up like he almost did Ruby?”
Blake shrugged. “I thought you wanted me dead, too.”
“I thought… I was…” Rainbow holstered her weapon. “I was scared.”
Blake blinked. “Of me?”
“I’ve been burned by White Fang infiltrators in the past,” Rainbow said defensively. “But… I shouldn’t have let it get to me. Like Twilight reminded me, you’re not Chrysalis. You’re not even White Fang any more, are you?”
“No,” Blake murmured. “Not anymore. Not that that erases what I did when I was part of the White Fang.” She folded her arms. “So… why did you save me?”
“Because you would have died if I hadn’t.”
“So?” Blake asked. “What does that matter to you?”
Rainbow shoved her hands into her jacket pockets. She scuffed her feet back and forth along the dock. “I… I have some really great friends,” she said. “I have a friend who can take a piece of cloth and turn it into something really beautiful like magic; I’ve got a friend who could take the most down on his luck guy you ever met off the street and put a smile on his face because she’s just… I can’t even describe what she’s got about her; I’ve got a friend who could charm birds out of the trees, literally. And Twilight’s smart and sweet, and Applejack is like a big sister to the whole world, and I… I’m not like them. I can’t make beautiful things, I can’t make people smile, I’m not kind or generous or smart. But I can do this. I can go toe to toe with monsters like Adam Taurus, and I can protect people who are in danger. And so I’ll do it. I’ll fight for Atlas, the flag, and the things that Applejack can do with apples.”
Blake’s eyebrows rose.
“Try one of her creations, and you’ll agree they’re worth fighting for,” Rainbow assured her.
Blake hesitated for a moment, before the briefest hint of a smile crossed her face. “Thank you,” she whispered. “If you hadn’t shown up… I led everyone into danger, but you saved us all.”
“That’s what Atlas is here for,” Rainbow assured her. “Say, I think it’s about my turn to ask you a really insulting question for a change.”
“Go on,” Blake agreed gloomily.
“Why did a girl with a stick up her ass about faunus rights leave the White Fang in the first place?”
Blake glared at her.
“I warned you it was an insulting question,” Rainbow said.
Blake frowned. “Because… because it was getting to the point where I couldn’t excuse the attempted murder of nine-year old flower girls as the work of a bad apple like Chrysalis. It was… it was becoming what we were all about, and I… I couldn’t live with it. I couldn’t live with myself if I lived with it. So I left.”
“And came to Beacon.”
Blake nodded. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Did bugging me about my allegiance seem like a good idea at the time, too?” Rainbow demanded.
Blake winced. “I thought you were-”
“A sellout?”
“Yes,” Blake admitted. “And a corporate enforcer for the SDC.”
“Well, I’m not,” Rainbow declared.
Blake glanced at the SDC shipping containers.
“Hey, you're the one who came here to save the SDC's stuff; I was here saving your butt,” Rainbow insisted. “We fight for the right thing. For truth, justice, and the Atlesian way.”
“Everyone thinks their cause is the right one,” Blake said.
“In Atlas’s case, it’s true,” Rainbow insisted.
Blake didn’t reply immediately. “So… what now?”
“Now?”
“What are you going to do with me?” Blake clarified.
Rainbow fell silent. “You know that Professor Ozpin knows all about you, right?”
Blake nodded. “So I’ve been told.”
“Then… who am I to contradict the commander of this post?” Rainbow asked. “And besides… I hear your parents are really good people, my folks on Menagerie-”
“Your parents live in Menagerie?” Blake asked.
“Yes, where there is no CCT, and I am very glad of the fact,” Rainbow said shamelessly. “But they write to me, and they say your parents are great. And like Applejack says: the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You can go back to Beacon, and my team won’t say a word about it. Your secret’s safe with us.”
Blake inhaled deeply. “Thank you, again,” she murmured. She pulled out a length of black ribbon and began to tie her bow around her head, covering her feline ears.
“Darling,” Rainbow drawled in her best approximation – which was to say, a terrible one – of Rarity’s voice. “Haven’t you heard? Bows are so last season!”
Blake stared at her.
Rainbow grinned.
Blake said nothing as she turned away. Sun was waiting for her, standing in the shadow of one of the nearest container units, close enough to be there but not close enough to be spying on anyone.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m… a little better, now,” Blake said with a glance at Rainbow Dash.
Sun nodded. “That’s good to hear,” he said. “So, what’s the plan now?”
“The plan… the plan is that I go back to Beacon,” Blake said. “And you come too and explain to Professor Ozpin just what a lone Haven student is doing here so soon in the year and see what he decides to do with you.”
“That doesn’t seem like much of a reward,” Sun pointed out.
Blake smiled with one corner of her mouth. “How about it if I tell you that I hope you stick around?”
Sun beamed like his namesake. “Well that… yeah, that was worth all of this.”
Ruby sat up. Thanks to Jaune, there was no longer any sign of the wound that had been dealt to her, save only for a tear on her outfit from beneath which her pale skin could be seen.
But it was skin intact, without so much as a scar visible.
And she was sitting up, looking slightly sheepish as though she were ashamed of all the attention that she had been receiving.
“Ruby,” Penny said curiously. “How do you feel?”
Ruby touched her side. “It feels… okay, actually,” she said. “I’m sorry to cause so much fuss for everyone.”
“'So much fuss'?” Sunset repeated incredulously. “How… how can you be so... you?”
“I’ve… had a lot of practice?” Ruby suggested.
“You…” Sunset clutched at her chest as nervous laughter rolled out of her, shaking her whole body on the way out of her mouth.
“You’re okay,” Jaune whispered exhaustedly. “You’re okay.”
“I guess I am,” Ruby said. “Thanks to you, Jaune.”
“Thanks to…” Jaune trailed off. It seemed to dawn on him for the first time just what he had done, that he alone had been responsible for Ruby’s deliverance. Pyrrha’s smile mingled gratitude and pride as she reached out and took him by the hand.
Sunset took a more direct approach to showing her gratitude, grabbing him by the face with both hands and planting a kiss upon his lips.
“Don’t expect that to happen very often, but you earned that on this occasion,” she told him, as he stared at her with his eyes boggling.
“Okay,” Jaune murmured. “But… maybe next time, give me a warning first?”
Yang had her arms wrapped around Ruby’s shoulders. “I think I’ll pass on the 'thank you' kiss, if that’s okay with you… but thanks. If there’s ever anything you need, you only have to ask.”
Jaune’s face was lighting up bright red. “I, uh, I’ll try and keep that in mind.”
Sunset closed her eyes for a moment. “I… Ruby, I’m sorry. I should have been… you shouldn’t have need to… next time, I-”
Her words were cut off by the feeling of arms around her. At first, she thought it was Ruby, having broken free from Yang’s embrace, giving her another hug, but when she opened her eyes, she saw that it was not just a hug but a group hug, Ruby on her left and Jaune on her right and Pyrrha embracing the both of them from her place opposite Sunset.
Ruby smiled. “You know, it’s not complete if you don’t raise your arms too.”
Sunset hesitated for a moment, still half at a loss as to what had brought this on, before she raised her arms to embrace Ruby on one side and Jaune on the other. She could feel Jaune’s armour plate under her arm, and her hand snaked through Ruby’s short, soft hair.
Her arms crossed over Pyrrha’s headed the other way. She could feel Pyrrha’s vambraces pressing against her sleeve.
It was…nice. Surprisingly nice, with their backs bent and their foreheads nearly touching and the warm of their arms upon her as they were joined together like ouroboros. It was nice.
It was something she wanted to protect.
I’ll get stronger from here on out. I will strengthen myself in every way and I won’t be afraid again.
And I’ll take that red sword to prove it.
And I’ll protect my team. This won’t happen again.
“We made it,” Ruby said. “We’re all here, and we’re all okay. We survived.”
“You say that like it’s a win,” Sunset said.
“Sometimes, survival is a victory,” Jaune pontificated. “I mean, look at mankind, right? We survive the grimm, and we call that winning.”
“Considering the circumstances,” Pyrrha said, “that we are all still here is nothing to be ashamed of, even if we did require Atlesian assistance.”
Sunset closed her eyes for a moment. “We’re going to get that guy one day, I promise.”
“Sure we will,” Ruby said. “But we’ll do it together. Because we’re Team Sapphire, and they made a big mistake when they messed with us!”
Sunset smirked. “Team Sapphire; yeah, they won’t know what hit them.”
“Team Sapphire,” Pyrrha said softly. “I’m very proud to call each of you my teammates.”
“Team Sapphire,” Jaune said. “You guys are awesome.”
“You’re not so bad yourself, Jaune,” Ruby reminded him.
“Yeah, with your new semblance, you’re a real asset now,” Sunset declared. She locked eyes with each of them in turn: first Jaune, then Ruby, and finally Pyrrha last of all and for the longest time.
We’re a team. My team. Team Sapphire.
And we’re going straight to the top.
All of us, because I don’t think I could do it without them.
“We’re going to do great things, the four of us,” Sunset said. “I guarantee it.” She blinked. “Speaking of Atlesian assistance, Penny, where is the rest of your team?”
“Ciel is still on overwatch, but I think Rainbow Dash went to see if that man was dead,” Penny said simply. “There she is now, with Blake!”
Sunset's gaze followed Penny’s eagerly pointing finger. Sure enough, there were Rainbow and Blake, with Sun coming over to join them both as they head towards the other huntsmen.
“Hey, guys,” Rainbow said. “I hear Ruby had a miraculous recovery.”
“Thanks to Jaune, yeah,” Ruby agreed. She smiled. “Thanks for having our backs.”
“That’s the job,” Rainbow said. She smirked. “Rescuing the helpless.”
“Take that back this instant!” Sunset snapped. “Egotistical little…”
“Don’t get mad just 'cause you know I’m right,” Rainbow said. “I bet our use of air support doesn’t seem so stupid now either, does it?”
Yang rolled her eyes. “Nobody likes the person who says ‘I told you so.’”
“Yeah, but I love myself, so that’s what counts,” Rainbow replied.
“I’m sorry I got you into this,” Blake murmured. “Ruby, I should never have-”
“It’s fine,” Ruby assured her. “Like Rainbow just said, it’s the job.”
“But it wasn’t the job; it was my problem,” Blake insisted.
“It was a huntsman problem, and we’re all huntsmen,” Ruby said. “And no one was hurt – not for long – and we stopped the bad guys, so we’re all good. Nobody’s going to tell on you.” She paused. “We’re not going to tell, are we?”
“Of course not,” Pyrrha murmured. “That would be very unkind in the circumstances.”
“I can’t say that I’ll be able to call you a friend after what I’ve learned,” Weiss said as she wandered over to join them. “No offence.”
Blake looked away. “None taken. I understand your reluctance.”
“But I am still willing to call you a fellow huntress-in-training,” Weiss added. “Although… young man, aren’t you the stowaway from the boat?”
Sun chuckled nervously, as he scratched the back of his head. “I’m also a Haven student, if that helps.”
Weiss rolled her eyes. “It appears they’ll take anyone in the academies these days.”
“Don’t sweat it, Blake; we all have a right to a past,” Yang said. “And… we all have a right to leave that past behind and do better.”
Blake looked down. “I… I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such generosity,” she admitted.
“Nobody knows,” Rainbow said. “That’s why they call it generosity.”
Blake smiled, if but for a brief moment. “I… I promise I won’t cause any of you so much trouble in future.”
The sirens screamed as a host of police calls rolled into the docks, lights flashing brightly blue and red atop them.
Professor Goodwitch climbed out of the first car as it rolled to a halt. To say that she looked unimpressed would be an understatement.
“Well, that’s good,” Sunset said, “because it looks like we’re in more than enough trouble for one semester.”